This blog will be used to highlight ideas and innovation in teaching and learning.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Learning French Online

In 2011 I will be teaching Year 7 and 8 students French. Before I start this process I want to develop my own French language skills. Initially I looked at purchasing a French language kit; the sort with booklets, CDs, maybe even a DVD. The problem with this was that it was going to cost money.

Naturally I then looked to the Internet. Here I have found all that I need. I will be using the Coffee Break French series of pod casts. These are 20 minute weekly lessons in which an experienced French language teacher takes a non French speaking adult student through the process to learn the language.

Coffee Break French is a wonderful resource. Unfortunately, though, the full package requires the purchasing on PDF files of notes to support the audio pod casts. My way around this has been to open a window in Google Translate as I am listening to the podcast. This has enabled my to create my own notes as I listen to each lesson. I have found that this has led to me making significant process, even after only a few weeks.

It's fantastic to see what is available through the Internet to support learning in just about any area you can imagine. Best of all, a huge amount is free.

I will keep you updated through this blog of how my French language learning progresses.